welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Friday, March 3, 2023

alzheimers news-will i write while impaired

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-WILL I WRITE WHILE IMPAIRED

the answer to the question in the title of this blog today is
yes

as long as its not frustrating for me to write
and
as long as my blog makes sense

dr daniel gibbs wrote recently in his a tattoo on my brain blog about
writing while impaired

his book with the same name as his blog details his journey with mild cognitive impairment due to alzheimers disease 
he was in the aduhelm or aducanumab study i am in but he had a large microbleed that forced him to withdraw from the study
it took him a few months to recover

his book also talks about things he notices and thinks about as the disease progresses
he can compare what he sees with what shows up on his scans
ie a certain part of the brain has amyloid plaques and tau tangles and he can compare that to the symptoms he has

he does the same with his blog
in this latest blog he couldnt remember the name of the street he was on near his house and couldnt remember any of the names of the other streets
hes lived in this area for years

eventually he will get lost as he goes for his walks and want find his way back
will that be next week or next month or next year or 5 years from now
he doesnt know

he has developed writers block so is finding it hard to write his blog and come up with new ideas
its probably caused from alzheimers disease
he has noticed trouble finding words and spelling words and leaving words unspelled and using the wrong word

i always read his blogs and i read his book because i know where he is now i will be there soon
when that happens ill know im at his stage of the disease

i have seen a change in his writing from when i read his book

of course the disease can cause issues differently for different folks based on where in the brain it metastasizes to

so far ive noticed things when i write like he has noticed
spelling is big issue but thanks to spell check and google i can spell
sometimes i cant think of a word so ill google synonym for something similar to what im thinking of
usually that word shows up 

many of the things i notice that he noticed some times ago he can explain it as a clinical neurologist and point to the part of the brain involved

he sort of is providing me a road map of where i am going

i once a week reread a few of my old blogs from 8 years ago when i do my story revisited blogs each week
i can notice sometimes a difference in my writing

some of this is probably my age and its normal cant remember stuff aging so i dont really worry about it much
but its back there in the back of my mind

i also make a lot of errors when i do my original draft but i do multiple reviews of it to clean it up
my wife she does an audit each day but shes not good at letting me know of errors

so will i write while impaired

yes
as i know its important to write this blog
for myself
to exercise my brain each morning
to document my journey
for others about to embark on this journey
for others who are there now

so my answer is 
yes

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the organicgreen doctor

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